


If These Shadows Have Offended

by Jayne L (JayneL)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-30
Updated: 2011-10-30
Packaged: 2017-10-25 02:10:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/270570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayneL/pseuds/Jayne%20L
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's because Dean hasn't been sleeping well lately that the ghost gets the drop on him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If These Shadows Have Offended

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers through 'Shut Up, Dr Phil'. Title, obviously, from Shakespeare.

Dean sits in a low chair at the end of a secluded wooden dock, fishing rod in hand, gazing out over a smooth, calm lake. The air he breathes is crisp, clean, fresh with the beautiful autumn morning.

Footsteps approach from behind him, slow and easy along the stretch of the dock. He sighs, content. "Took you long enough."

The surface of the lake ripples, as if the wind's kicked up--but the air is still, if suddenly, bitingly cold. As Dean watches, inky stains sprawl through the water, curling out to the shore from deep in the centre. In seconds, the whole lake is black.

Something tugs sharply on his line.

The footsteps draw up next to his chair. Dean's chest is hollow with dread.

~

Smooth stroke of his arm, controlled forward jerk with an upward tilt, and his knife is buried hilt-deep in the kitsune's chest. Dean feels the moment it punctures her heart, the give and cease of muscle and pressure.

He looks up and it's his mother's body stuck on the blade, his mom's face frozen in shock. He tries to pull the knife out, but it won't move. Tries to let go, but his hand won't release.

She's glassy-eyed and vacant when the flames explode from behind her, but Dean still can't move and they sear him, too.

He knows the little boy's watching him burn.

~

"Dean."

Dean's hand tightens instinctively around the slender hilt of his knife. It's his favourite, the blade curved and so sharp there's a delay between the parting of flesh and the moment of pain. He straightens and turns from his rack, which is empty. His feet stick a little on the floor.

Cas stands across the room. He doesn't look at Dean; he stares at Sam, who stands in front of him, close enough to touch if either of them took a deep breath. Cas studies him unblinking, intent on his eyes the way he always is with Dean. Sam stares back, his face pale, his breathing shallow.

"Dean," Cas says again, urgently, "there's something wrong with Sam." And his hand moves at his side, darts out and grabs Sam's, his thumb hard on Sam's palm, digging in. Blood wells up under the pressure, thick and fast and red, and Sam flinches back, but Cas's grip is strong. He holds him in place as Cas surges up against him, closes the bare gap between their bodies and seals their mouths together.

Cas kisses Sam as intently as he stared at him. After a moment Sam kisses back, lets his lips part for Cas's tongue, lets his skin part for Cas's thumb. His blood runs slick over their fingers and drips to the floor.

Dean watches, rooted to his place beside his rack. His favourite knife is smooth and sleek and deadly against his skin, and as he wonders if it's what cut Sam's hand, he feels his own palm split and sting and bleed. Glancing down, he sees his blood slip away from him, falling to add to the mess on the floor.

He drops his knife and looks back up. Cas and Sam clutch at each other now, kissing deeply, rocking against each other, and Dean wants--fuck, he _wants_ \--to go to them, but his feet won't move. His feet won't _move_ , and maybe what he really wants is for them to come to him. His rack is _empty_. "There's something wrong with me," he says, and his voice is reedy with fear.

Cas and Sam don't notice.

* * *

It's because he hasn't been sleeping well lately that the ghost gets the drop on him.

When they get back to the motel after the salt-and-burn, Dean deposits himself on the end of his bed with a weary sigh. The handful of ice he scooped from the machine on their way past numbs his hand and the goose egg on his head as it melts. "Hey, grab me a beer while you're over there," he calls to Sam, who's reaching for the ice bucket that rests on top of the room's tiny fridge.

Sam swivels around with his eyebrows climbing up under his messy hair. "You're kidding."

Dean stares. "What?"

"You have a concussion."

"So?"

"So you're not drinking with a head injury, Dean." It's that tone he's been hearing from Sam a lot lately, accompanied by the look Sam gets whenever he sees bottles on Dean's nightstand or catches a glimpse of Dean's flask. On his way back across the room, ice bucket in hand, he tosses Dean a towel for his handful of now-mostly-water. "It could kill you."

"Yeah, and now Cas ain't around, maybe it'll stick."

It's out of his mouth before he can stop it, the thought he's been nursing deep in his head for weeks. Sam freezes two steps from the door, his whole body suddenly, awfully still, and when he turns around, he looks like--

Yeah, Dean should've kept that to himself. He's never wanted to see Sam look like that, not ever. "Sam--"

"Dean." And Dean never wanted to hear him sound like that, either, like it hurts just to say his name. Like it hurts so much he's not sure he can do it again, but makes himself do it anyway. "Dean, you--you don't mean that."

"No, Sammy, course I don't." But there was a pause before he could get it out. Barely there, but Sam noticed it; Dean watches his eyes go wide and his mouth go slack and his hands move towards each other in the habit Sam picked up when he still needed help convincing himself the Lucifer standing next to him wasn't really there, and _fuck_. "Look, my head hurts, I'm tired, I'm pissed off--I was just being an ass, Sam--"

"No. No, you--" Sam shakes his head slowly. His eyes gleam in the room's low light. "How long? How long have you--wanted--"

"I don't--"

"I mean, you drank when Dad died, and you drank after Hell, but it was never this bad."

"Sam--"

"Was it--" Sam's eyes widen even more--the look in them softening, all of a sudden--and he shifts his weight from one foot to the other, gnaws on his bottom lip like he's debating whether to keep going. "Dean. Was it Cas? I know, with you two--there was something--"

"Jesus, Sam!" Dean bolts to his feet, turns his back on Sam and cuts his hands through the air because no, dammit, there wasn't 'something'. There _wasn't_ , because Dean's not--

\--he's _not_ , and he _couldn't_ \--

\--and whatever Sam thinks he knows is not anything Dean's going to talk about, ever. So instead he turns back to Sam, glaring, and bites out, "It was when I ganked that kitsune bitch who turned your head, okay? Because you couldn't. Because you were _wrong_."

And Sam actually stumbles back a step, the words hitting him like a physical blow. "Amy?" he says, hoarse and shocked. He blinks at Dean like he doesn't know who he's looking at. "But you said--"

"I know what I said, Sam." Adrenaline's got his pulse up and his head throbbing, and god, Dean wants a drink. Needs one. Needs the edges softened, if he's gonna keep making Sammy hurt like this. "Wasn't what I did."

Sam's breathing like he's just run a marathon, air punching out of him, noisy. "Jacob?" he asks faintly, and Dean looks at him blankly. "Her kid, Dean. Did you--is he--"

"He's fine." Dean smiles, a hard, unthinking twist of his mouth, and adds, "Said he's gonna kill me someday."

Sam's breath catches, and the room's silent for a long second. Then he spins, quick and violent, and throws the ice bucket at the wall, hard. It hits the corner of the fridge on its way, and the cheap, hollow plastic breaks apart with a sharp crack.

Sam's out the door before the pieces hit the floor, through it and gone without saying a word. The whole wall shakes with the door slam.

Dean stares after him. His aching head pounds with the noise. "Fuck," he says, and barely recognises his own voice.

He gets himself a beer.


End file.
